Category Archives: Space for Cycling

Articles relating to infrastructure and urban design to enable safe cycling.

Arriva North West, you’ve taught me so much over the years.

Indeed, you’ve been teaching me for years how to ride on Blackburn road when there are drivers such as yours who simply cannot be trusted with my safety. Here are some examples. Bridge Street, passing Topp Way In 2011 and … Continue reading

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Bolton Transport Interchange – an exercise in missed opportunities.

Last week, Bolton Council opened the new transport interchange, consolidating bus and rail transport on the same site. Apparently the project cost £48 Million. Further money will be spent on a multi-storey car park to allow people to drive to … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Bolton, Space for Cycling | 2 Comments

A ride down Oxford Road, Manchester

The Friday before last, I had a bit of time to spare before the start of the World Naked Bike Ride in Manchester, so I decided to have a ride down Oxford Road and back to see what the new … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Space for Cycling | 11 Comments

Safety and Numbers: the sad case of Bolton.

There has been a report circulating recently about the relationship between cycling safety and the number of people cycling, which uses available data to show the rather unsurprising negative correlation between the rates of injuries and deaths of people riding … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Bolton, Road Justice, Space for Cycling | 4 Comments

Some Spanish cycle infrastructure: not perfect, but decades ahead of the UK

We recently enjoyed a 3 week holiday in Spain and I was surprised by the quality of the cycle infrastructure that we encountered there. Whilst they had the advantage, in the area we stayed, of a lot of fairly new … Continue reading

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Side road treatments – do most British designs miss the point?

One of the things that I liked to see in Amsterdam was the quite common use of continuous footways  across side roads: This design makes it very clear to motorists (and cyclists for that matter) that, on entering or leaving … Continue reading

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An Outsider in Amsterdam

Last week, I was lucky to have the opportunity to visit Amsterdam for a few days with some friends. Of course, I insisted that we hire bicycles as our main form of transport for the period, so we experienced something … Continue reading

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New Bolton-Bury Shared Path

[UPDATE (August 2018): Since this article was written, a lot of work has been done on the Bury side of the boundary. This video shows the whole route from Manchester Road in Bolton to the tram station in Radcliffe.] Original … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Bolton, Space for Cycling | 9 Comments

Some observations from visiting Oxford

I just spent a few days in Oxford with my wife. We didn’t ride bikes, but did do a fair amount of walking. As we expected in Oxford, we saw lots of people on bikes, mostly with flat handlebars and … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Road Justice, Space for Cycling | 7 Comments

Cyclists Dismount: A disappointing attitude from @BoltonCouncil

The picture below shows the approach to some road works that are currently in progress on Moss Bank Way in Bolton: “Cyclists Dismount” signs are often used by ignorant local authorities who claim that they are there for safety reasons, … Continue reading

Posted in Article, Bolton, Road Justice, Space for Cycling | 4 Comments